Latest / Multiple Nerdgasm / PAX East 2017 Wrap-up Episode

Transcript

PAX East 2017 Wrap-up Episode · Multiple Nerdgasm

• 0:06
  hi it's Jenna and Matt here from multiple nerdgasm for our PAX East 2017
• 0:10
  wrap-up episode and we're joined by our friend James hey how's it going why
• 0:15
  don't you tell us a little bit about yourself James so uh my name is James
• 0:18
  obviously as Jenna said uh huge gamer have been for years uh amateur board
• 0:22
  game designer in the process actually starting a couple of companies in that
• 0:25
  vein um so Pax to me is as much a bus bus Venture as it is just kind of
• 0:31
  learning about all the cool stuff that's out there great sweet yeah PAX East is
• 0:35
  the the biggest of the paxes and I think it's actually the biggest gaming
• 0:39
  convention in North America now uh particularly um because it's got
• 0:44
  tabletop and video games I think it gets like double the numbers because of that
• 0:49
  uh and I think the venue is actually physically the biggest is that correct
• 0:53
  I'm not sure about in the US it's definitely almost double the size of pax
• 0:57
  Australia which we've done coverage of before yeah the show floor itself is
• 1:00
  like more than double yeah Luke and I have been to Pax E before that was 3
• 1:05
  four years ago I think it was in 2013 we went and I remember thinking it was big
• 1:10
  like compared to because I've been to PX Prime uh we've been to PX Oz at that
• 1:14
  point I think uh actually I don't think no paa didn't exist at that point did it
• 1:19
  no I think that was just before I think that was the first year yeah uh but I've
• 1:23
  been to P Prime and I remember thinking PAX East was like huge and but this year
• 1:28
  was even bigger like there was not there was no space anywhere for anything like
• 1:34
  it was full they filled up that whole Convention Center which is crazy yeah
• 1:38
  there was not much space to move around no we attempted at at one point to find
• 1:43
  a table to just sit down and play some board games and we couldn't find any
• 1:47
  like there were no tables available like that's never happened at a Pax for me oh
• 1:51
  that happens at PAX East all the time oh does it yeah no this isn't my first time
• 1:55
  at PAX East for some reason I get Super Lucky in like 3 days before the con
• 2:00
  start somebody gives me tickets so it's been awesome for the past couple years
• 2:05
  um but yeah so this is kind of How We Roll on the East Coast here which I know
• 2:09
  is new for you guys coming from down in Aussie yeah the convention is always
• 2:12
  slammed we got there at about 10:30 doors opened at 10:00 and we waited an
• 2:16
  hour outside to be able to get into the place um just in line to get through
• 2:20
  security which is insane yeah but panel start then yeah panels do start then I
• 2:26
  mean it's it's packed if you want to be in there on time you're showing up at 8:
• 2:30
  in the morning to be the first one in line you know it's just kind of how it
• 2:32
  rolls but that's why you want to buy multi-day tickets that's a lot different
• 2:37
  from PX Australia where everybody lines up inside and then gets ushered in all
• 2:40
  at once yeah I think in the US um there's a little bit tighter security
• 2:45
  restrictions that they're trying to run everything through it's not cuz there's
• 2:49
  a threat out there but it's because we're paranoid as hell that does make it
• 2:53
  very difficult when you're trying to get several hundred thousand people through
• 2:56
  three lines of bag checks yeah I don't think we we don't have metal detectors
• 3:00
  or anything at odds do we you just walk in no I mean they make you check like if
• 3:04
  you've got fake weapons they'll make you yeah they do the the weapons check where
• 3:08
  you actually get a tag for your fake weapon and everything yeah exactly yeah
• 3:13
  also the it snows outside here uh which is a little different cuz it's freezing
• 3:18
  and whereas in Australia you just sweat to death while you're waiting right last
• 3:22
  year Pax e was held at the end of April which I think is probably a better time
• 3:26
  because it's a bit warmer okay I didn't know they shuffled it around like that I
• 3:30
  think it's just whenever the convention center is free yeah it wasn't that bad
• 3:32
  this year eventually we'll become locals and we'll stop complaining about it yeah
• 3:37
  guys I mean the temperatures really weren't that bad I don't think it was
• 3:39
  below freezing it was what like 35 that day no something around there and then
• 3:43
  with only a slight wind chill for being in Boston on the Friday in the morning
• 3:46
  when we were waiting outside it was snowing and we had to wait in the snow
• 3:49
  that was a bit that was cold so I prefer that to the heat I
• 3:54
  don't know I guess I'm a New Englander it's probably only about like 80 85 when
• 3:58
  you're in PAX Australia yeah yeah well that's what I'm saying would you rather
• 4:01
  wait in line and be chilly or wait in line and be sweaty and nasty when you
• 4:06
  finally get inside but you don't have to wait in line outside I think Pax
• 4:10
  Australia feels a lot bigger because it's along the river where there are a
• 4:14
  bunch of restaurants and other things to do so you don't have to stay within the
• 4:18
  convention center yeah uh that's pretty cool PAX Prime is like that too because
• 4:23
  they don't have one venue that's big enough to to contain packs in Seattle so
• 4:28
  it splits across a number of like there's a Convention Center there and
• 4:32
  there's also a bunch of hotels in the area that have you know like you have
• 4:35
  the the panel rooms upstairs say at at PAX East those would be in a hotel next
• 4:40
  door kind of thing in in Seattle at least that's how it was when I went I
• 4:43
  don't know if it's moved venues or anything since then but it was pretty
• 4:47
  different in that sense cuz you you had to leave and cross the road even up the
• 4:51
  street I think at one point to get to all the different panels is uh kind of
• 4:55
  crazy oh wow yeah so they really spread it through a couple of different venues
• 4:58
  to put it together yeah yeah it's just it's too big to
• 5:01
  contain within one they've also extended it to 4 days yeah well that was in uh
• 5:06
  that was in 2011 that I was there so that's six years ago and like I said I P
• 5:11
  when I was at PAX East I didn't think it was as big as it is was this year so I
• 5:15
  kind of imagine how big Pack's Prime is now maybe we'll find out in September
• 5:19
  hopefully fingers crossed oh hopefully Matt you mentioned how busy the tabletop
• 5:24
  area was were either of you guys able to play any games yeah um I was actually
• 5:28
  able to demo uh a couple games um one of which I'm super psyched about
• 5:32
  and the other I don't think is worth talking about so right well maybe we won't mention
• 5:37
  that one then that's usually how it goes what was the good one good one is uh
• 5:41
  Evolution from Northstar games these guys have been around for a while um
• 5:45
  it's a great company they produce kind of more of that familyfriendly game they
• 5:49
  do some of the the party games some games a little more focused on slight
• 5:53
  education you know like learning something out of the game which is kind
• 5:55
  of cool um Evolution um I kickstarted this game when they first launched
• 6:01
  [Music]
• 6:59
  the developers over at Northstar they've always done a great job and they just
• 7:03
  kind of keep pushing things forward in that direction so it's really neat to
• 7:06
  see cool is it available now yeah um so Evolution uh the base game is available
• 7:12
  now the expansion is available uh this is their second expansion first one was
• 7:16
  flight so this one actually adds the the temperature control aspect and then
• 7:20
  their newest one is evolution climate so you can buy Evolution climate as a
• 7:24
  standalone if you're getting into the game now that's going to be the way to
• 7:27
  go there's a conversion kit for those of us who have the original Evolution and
• 7:32
  that will just kind of take the cards we have and shift over to this new
• 7:35
  experience with the game but if it's your first time getting into the game
• 7:39
  just it's Northstar games and you want to look up Evolution climate Standalone
• 7:43
  that one game and you're going to be good to go it is absolutely fantastic
• 7:46
  cool sounds good we didn't get to play a lot of board games but we did get to see
• 7:50
  some pretty badass gaming uh paraphernalia and there's a bunch of
• 7:55
  these there but my favorite of them was the geek tables badass
• 7:59
  gaming tables that like have drawers that pull out and you can attach cup
• 8:03
  holders and it's got a felt lining in it but you can put purse specs over the top
• 8:08
  so you can draw on they're awesome and you can buy all those elements
• 8:12
  individual too so you can modify it way after you've bought it yeah yeah so like
• 8:17
  if you're like oh my table's pretty good but it could you do with a big badass
• 8:21
  dungeon Masters setup at the end of it well you just buy one and put it on the
• 8:24
  end you you literally customize your table from the start with these guys um
• 8:28
  i' I've found Geek Chic I want to say 5 years ago at Boston ComicCon um and I
• 8:33
  got to tell you one of the biggest fights at my wedding was trying to get
• 8:36
  this table put onto the wedding registry and I lost um cuz apparently I wasn't
• 8:41
  allowed to put a $4,000 gaming table on the registry but whatever that's a fight
• 8:45
  for another day um when you go to the website I mean you tailor craft what
• 8:49
  table you want what attributes you want on it the the different accessories it's
• 8:54
  absolutely amazing um I know these guys are backed up on orders so you do have
• 8:59
  to wait for it but the product is unbelievable I think they're pretty
• 9:03
  affordable too they run a bit expensive the more elements you want on it but the
• 9:08
  base model is pretty inexpensive yeah yeah no the base models are are great
• 9:14
  but you know I don't I don't go base go big go home what's the biggest table you got
• 9:20
  you know if you're going to do it just do it yeah yeah what's the biggest table
• 9:24
  you got what's everything I could possibly get for it not only that but
• 9:27
  they're really pretty tables oh they're and when you have them closed up right
• 9:31
  when you're not using it as a gaming table it is an absolutely gorgeous
• 9:35
  dining room table Yeah you can hide your geekiness I don't know why you would but you
• 9:39
  can exactly just buy two of them use one to eat off and one to play games on
• 9:44
  you're going to do that you may as well just buy a normal table brilliant don't
• 9:48
  bother me with logic and then if you're going with a gaming table you got to get all the
• 9:53
  classy ass stuff um I don't know how long did you guys spend drooling over
• 9:56
  the warm W stuff the warm word stuff oh a while this was my first time seeing
• 10:02
  them in person I picked one of the dice Towers up and it collapsed under
• 10:06
  pressure I actually thought I broke it because it's held together by magnets
• 10:09
  but I mean that's awesome because it's they're all totally customizable yeah
• 10:13
  every time I see them at a convention I I spend at least 20 minutes half hour
• 10:17
  literally just holding and dreaming about using them wormwood makes dice
• 10:21
  boxes dice Towers uh DM screens a bunch of stuff for tabletop RPGs they're
• 10:27
  amazing and then kind of following in that same as Geek Chic it's it's all about
• 10:31
  customization with these guys as well so um I know recently they had a
• 10:35
  Kickstarter out for their DM screens and you were able to custom build which
• 10:38
  aspects you wanted which pieces you're putting into it um there's a dice tower
• 10:42
  that connects into your DM screen which is just awesome um so it's this this
• 10:47
  whole idea that you know geekd has really hit high level when people are
• 10:51
  custom crafting fine woodwork for us to work with and it's not a generic piece
• 10:56
  you're going to get you're going to get what it is you want exactly how want it
• 10:59
  I mean it's it's amazing yeah their stuff is great and you can customize all
• 11:03
  different types of wood as well they run a bit expensive but you're getting a
• 11:07
  very high quality product yeah they had a Kickstarter recently for for some of
• 11:12
  the dice Towers if I recall and I was
• 11:16
  very interested but then it was very expensive so I was like you know what
• 11:22
  maybe one day I DM and I was interested in their DM screens yeah they're
• 11:28
  beautiful oh I've been dming for a little while and I am in love with their
• 11:31
  DM screens they're so good but apparently I need to get a job before
• 11:37
  I'm allowed to buy stuff like that I don't know I know weird rules I know
• 11:43
  right it's like going into debt for college isn't good enough I have to have
• 11:46
  a job as well and make money so wormwood if uh if you want to sponsor us yeah I
• 11:53
  guess we could review them or something we would gladly accept that the three of
• 11:57
  us actually play tabletop RPGs together I guess we could I guess we could take
• 12:01
  one if they if they're insistent about it yeah like stop calling us wormwood
• 12:07
  yeah yeah my my phone's been ringing off the hook I mean these guys know who I am
• 12:11
  they've been calling me every day they're like hey you DM all these great
• 12:15
  games you got to use our stuff I'm like no buddy I really prefer using crappy
• 12:18
  cardboard it's cool one game we did uh pick up some
• 12:23
  expansions for while we were there was joking Hazard the S and happiness game
• 12:28
  and we were also lucky enough to get all our stuff signed by I think everybody
• 12:34
  involved in the creation of the game like the guys from Sid and happiness and
• 12:37
  also everybody involved in creating the game itself yeah and one of the guys who
• 12:42
  does the cartoon his signature looks like a dick so now our card has a little dick on
• 12:47
  it yep and it's it's a dick signature diat oh that's weird that's yeah that's
• 12:52
  so out of character for cide and happiness I know right that is a really
• 12:56
  fun game though listeners if you haven't played it um you should should get on
• 13:00
  that mhm I do think there is the potential for this to go a little bit
• 13:03
  sour kind of in the way that Cards Against Humanity does when you first get
• 13:07
  it you play it to death and then it just isn't as funny as the first few times
• 13:12
  yeah yeah yeah I think uh similar with cards there's a period where the the the
• 13:16
  shock value of some of the cards that you're playing skews the game a little
• 13:21
  bit to begin with but then once everybody becomes familiar with what the
• 13:23
  cards are then it becomes more about using them cleverly rather than just
• 13:28
  putting down card that says Pac-Man uncontrollably goling come and then you
• 13:32
  win and you can make custom cards in this game too yeah what I loved about
• 13:35
  that game is that we've added a couple of house rules when I play it um one of
• 13:39
  the rules as you guys know the way the game plays is you collect the card that
• 13:42
  you won so you know it tells you how many cards you've won um the rule that
• 13:46
  we have is that when you collect those cards they have to you have to create a
• 13:49
  comic strip with it and it has to be a logical comic strip and you can't win
• 13:53
  the game if the cards you collected don't create a logical strip so it adds
• 13:58
  like just another element of total goofiness and Chaos into the game um and
• 14:02
  it it's one of those games where you really can you know there's a set of
• 14:04
  rules for it but you can tweak this all you want and it it's got a lot of
• 14:09
  flexibility um I think it's got a lot more flexibility than cards Up Against
• 14:12
  Humanity really does just based off the way it plays yeah I agree well from the
• 14:18
  from the tabletop side of packs which is really where I spent my majority of time
• 14:22
  um did you guys find I know you guys were off in the gaming world the video
• 14:26
  gaming world were you did was there anything else in the tabletop area that
• 14:29
  you found interesting or you were able to check out I did see the the uh the
• 14:33
  wizard dice that I backed on Kickstarter oh those are by poly hero yeah no I um I
• 14:38
  got to check those out and that was one of the things where I was really unhappy
• 14:41
  that I had zero budget um they were awesome see we got these way back when
• 14:45
  we uh when we did have a budget yeah so I got uh I got the wizard dice uh so we
• 14:52
  got two sets of those coming and I also got because because of the kickstarter I
• 14:56
  got a discount on the The Warrior ones as well so these are like custom
• 15:00
  designed in the style of like whatever the class that they're they're of like
• 15:05
  as in role playing class like wizard uh the the Warrior One they've
• 15:10
  done before the next one is going to be the Rogue I believe and they've also
• 15:13
  designed a cleric set so like a lot of the the the Mage ones the wizard ones
• 15:19
  look like you know like a fireball or a there mag hat yeah like a or a potion
• 15:25
  bottle and all that kind of stuff and the warrior ones one looks like Shield
• 15:29
  one looks like a mace they like but they're they're all your standard you
• 15:34
  know Dungeons and Dragons seven set of seven dice that you would play with
• 15:40
  normally and uh yeah they come in a range of different colors which also I
• 15:45
  think uh you can vote on the colors on the kickstarter too when they do them um
• 15:50
  they've done two on Kickstarter and the rest of them I believe they plan to do
• 15:54
  so if you get in when they're doing them you can choose the colors you can choose
• 15:58
  you know various odds and ends to do with them and they're really
• 16:02
  awesome now did you guys get to hold the dice at all play with them or do you
• 16:05
  just kind of see them and passing no they had a set of them uh
• 16:10
  like like one set out that you could you could actually check and you know like
• 16:14
  roll and play with it which was cool cuz I I'd backed them on Kickstarter but i'
• 16:19
  never actually touched them like I just saw them and was like I want those but
• 16:24
  to actually use them and go oh cool they actually really work and uh they look
• 16:27
  really awesome I just don't think as heavy as I'm comfortable with that was
• 16:31
  my one call out on them is that the dice they made are they're plastic based
• 16:35
  they're not a resin base and so they're a little bit lighter weight and as
• 16:40
  awesome as they look it it it didn't quite feel right to me you know I'm not
• 16:45
  saying I don't want them cuz I want them cuz you know I'm playing an orc fighter
• 16:49
  and he needs some badass dice but the the weight scale just wasn't I don't
• 16:54
  know it was just it was missing that little something yeah fair enough I think they
• 16:59
  3D printed uh them first so um I don't know whether they'll be able to adjust
• 17:04
  for that later or like the ones that were there I think were production ones
• 17:08
  though so I guess they they distill that that format maybe I think they 3D print
• 17:13
  the final ones as well cuz uh 3D printed stuff is very light so maybe that's why
• 17:19
  yeah I don't know how I feel about 3D printing it's always like deceptively
• 17:23
  light yeah like uh the figurines and stuff that they sell at the conventions
• 17:27
  that have been 3D printed and used you go to pick it up and like it's way
• 17:31
  lighter than it should be based on the size of it I think that's all I got for
• 17:35
  tabletop I mean Saturday was probably the busiest day of the convention and we
• 17:39
  did try to play some board games um we went over there after the show floor had
• 17:43
  closed cuz the the tabletop area is open for another what 3 or 4 hours but the
• 17:49
  lines to rent board games was just like surrounding the full table like it would
• 17:54
  have taken forever so we were like yeah we could do this or we could just go home play a
• 17:59
  game yeah so we went and played Mario
• 18:03
  Golf that's awesome yeah no um at this year's convention I only played a couple
• 18:09
  of board games um typically that that's my big thing is going there and getting
• 18:13
  to demo a lot of games uh that's actually where I discovered Sentinels of
• 18:16
  the Multiverse um which I think I got you guys into as well now um yeah yeah
• 18:21
  so that came from packs uh you know getting the chance to sit down and play
• 18:26
  uh and actually experience what the games are like before you you spend some
• 18:29
  money on it and then because it's me getting addicted and spending way too
• 18:32
  much money on it is kind of how it works um oh and for those of you who do play
• 18:36
  senel of the Multiverse they got the foil cards out there for the heroes now
• 18:40
  and they are absolutely gorgeous um I wanted to buy a set but obviously I kick
• 18:44
  started the the full expansion with the box for everything so you know hopefully
• 18:48
  my Oblivion will be coming in sooner than later but their cards look amazing
• 18:52
  cool yeah I saw that they had a booth they had a booth I think they've had a
• 18:55
  booth at most of the paxes it sucks that tabletop was so busy this time because
• 18:58
  CU it's such a great place to meet other people um like there are always
• 19:02
  tournaments going on or you can just jump in and join some people playing a
• 19:05
  game at a table and it's it's a great way to meet people that enjoy playing
• 19:09
  tabletop games well that's why uh the Philadelphia Convention came into being
• 19:13
  really uh you know PS unplugged which is coming up in November in Philly and I'm
• 19:19
  I'm super psyched about that so that's going to be a whole pxs convention
• 19:21
  really just focused on the tabletop sector um it's going to be interesting
• 19:25
  to see how that flows out it's the the first time they're doing it yeah I
• 19:28
  wonder if they'll they'll split them off uh or if they'll still or just kind of
• 19:34
  maybe shrink down the tabletop stuff cuz there was I mean this was there was so
• 19:39
  much video game at at this one like so much they maybe need the space INF
• 19:44
  future for it at east yeah and um I don't know about you guys but for me
• 19:48
  personally this year as compared to years past it didn't seem as organized
• 19:52
  um on the floor itself you know years past there seemed to be a very
• 19:55
  delineated line here's where tabletop ends here where video game starts and
• 19:59
  this year it kind of Blended together so it made it a little bit harder to work
• 20:03
  the floor trying to check out what you want to see well yeah usually there's a
• 20:06
  partition between the two areas but this year there wasn't I think because they
• 20:10
  were just so stuck for space they just had to open up the entire floor right
• 20:14
  yeah yeah CU there was just so much stuff and like even up the you exit kind
• 20:19
  of out of the video games into tabletop for a moment and then all of a sudden
• 20:22
  you're back in video games it's like what the I think that was struggling to
• 20:26
  fit it all in and there were those two aisles down either
• 21:28
  on PC and I think PS4 but you play as uh a kind of uh
• 21:35
  person who died and then taken over the the yeah I think you you die and you
• 21:38
  take over the role of the Grim Reaper or the Grim Reaper away I think was the
• 21:41
  premise and so you have to take over and you flip
• 21:46
  between the uh the afterlife where you can kind of move around and it's kind of
• 21:50
  a platform Style game when you're in the afterlife but then you can possess
• 21:55
  people and then flip and it flips the world around so that you're in the
• 21:59
  the you know the living world and you control people like you possess people
• 22:04
  to to solve puzzles and so the the afterlife is more of a platformer and
• 22:09
  then the real world is is like puzzle problem solving and it's just got really
• 22:14
  beautiful handrawn Graphics uh and the it was really smooth and it ran really
• 22:18
  well I'm surprised that it's like so far from complete cuz it just looks so great
• 22:23
  as it was I love the art style in this it's very bures yeah yeah as soon as we walked as
• 22:29
  soon as we saw it I was like oh my goodness I'm going to want to play this
• 22:33
  so yeah that's uh flipping death by Z games uh and again it's very early so um
• 22:38
  maybe we'll see them at PACE next year maybe hopefully with the with the the
• 22:42
  final version now you said that was for the switch right Nintendo switch they
• 22:46
  were pushing it as a switch game but she did say that it was going to be on other
• 22:49
  platforms and I'm fairly certain PC and PS4 were amongst them I don't know about
• 22:54
  Xbox there seems nobody put stuff out for Xbox yeah I don't know what's going
• 22:58
  on there there were bunch of them that that like well we could talk about it
• 23:01
  next if you want Jenna your oh yeah okay one of your top tier game developers has
• 23:06
  a new game coming out it's not coming out in the Xbox oh I'm sorry what I
• 23:11
  spoke to one of the guys from the company super giant games who are behind
• 23:14
  basan and transistor Bastion has recently been ported over to the Xbox
• 23:18
  One and the PlayStation 4 but as of now there are no plans to bring transistor
• 23:22
  over to the Xbox or to release their newest game p on the Xbox he did say it
• 23:26
  was because they're a very small team and it is a lot of work to Port them
• 23:30
  over Matt do you think you could explain that a little bit why is it that it's
• 23:33
  easier to bring stuff out on the PS4 well I I mean I'm not sure of the
• 23:37
  specifics it could be because different companies will provide different
• 23:40
  incentives for you to do that so it could be that where Microsoft uh and I
• 23:45
  know I know other companies have had I say I'm not a professional when it comes
• 23:50
  to this I just know that other companies have had problems with Microsoft's kind
• 23:55
  of attitude towards independent developers and and they've made a big
• 23:59
  effort with this you know ID at Xbox to correct that I think it could be a case
• 24:05
  that Sony's giving them kind of investing some effort in and and
• 24:09
  potentially money into them releasing the game whereas Microsoft is not like
• 24:13
  so it's worth it for them to to make the effort does that make sense sure so I
• 24:19
  know that um the Super Meat Boy guys had a bad experience with Xbox um like I
• 24:24
  said this is anecdotal I don't I don't know any inside baseball kind of stuff
• 24:29
  about it I just know that there are a bunch of developers who had a had a bad
• 24:33
  experience um making Xbox games so they went do but I actually it's also true
• 24:38
  that I know uh in the past people have had bad experiences working with Sony so
• 24:42
  you know I think it's just it's probably just balls down to the specifics of of
• 24:46
  what those developers were able to arrange well and part of it when you
• 24:51
  think about it if you've got a small team you've got to focus yeah right
• 24:54
  right sure when you've got a small team you can only focus on so much and so
• 24:58
  you're going to pick the developer or the the company that works best for you
• 25:01
  and push for that and if they're working with PS on one game they're just going
• 25:05
  to continue through yeah well let's go back to talking about super giant games
• 25:09
  we got to play their newest game py at pxs yeah totally it's an action-based
• 25:13
  RPG where you play as somebody who is assisting three Exiles through
• 25:18
  Purgatory it's a story based game that brings in an element of sports as well
• 25:23
  it can be single or multiplayer yeah that was surprising it's a fun little
• 25:26
  game where you have to get a little orb onto the other player side it's kind of
• 25:30
  like a reverse Capture the Flag it's a bit like basketball I heard someone
• 25:34
  someone while we were there comparing it to basketball and I was like you know
• 25:37
  what it's kind of right it's all about souls and and Mystic rituals and stuff
• 25:42
  and so it's a neat little wrapping of it it could be a sports game except it's
• 25:47
  just not because it's not in that context yeah right you know I had a lot
• 25:52
  of fun with the demo yeah so did I that's coming out later this year but
• 25:56
  the release date hasn't been announced yet I'm here with uh Darren from super
• 26:00
  giant games he is the composer of Bastion and transistor along with the
• 26:05
  new game p uh so I have a question for you regarding the music um some of the
• 26:11
  most emotional scenes in both Bastion and transistor kind of like revolve
• 26:16
  around the music like for instance Red's voice with we all become when she loses
• 26:20
  her voice it's kind of vital to the game um so like how important a role do you
• 26:27
  think that music plays in games I I mean I think the potential for uh the
• 26:33
  incorporation of music is very high it just really depends on how integrated it
• 26:38
  is into the development process I think and and that's part of why we're able to
• 26:43
  do things that sort of revolve around musical moments sometimes is because I
• 26:47
  am involved from the start of the game I'm on team so I'm actually you know I'm
• 26:51
  actually part of the development team right so you guys all write it together
• 26:54
  so it's all yeah it's all sort of done you know in in tandem right uh and so I
• 27:01
  I think it's it's just as important and just as able to contribute to to that as
• 27:07
  uh as you know any other aspect of the game the art the design the gameplay I
• 27:11
  mean it's uh it's yeah it's a critical aspect just like anything else right so
• 27:16
  you think other games can like could benefit from from that yeah I mean I
• 27:20
  think there's there's a tendency to just bring in composer at the end and be like
• 27:24
  here's the game make some music and and then they you know gets put in and and
• 27:27
  that's totally works and is fine um but there's certainly uh there may be some
• 27:33
  sort of untapped potential left on the table when you do it like that but I
• 27:38
  mean of course you know on the other hand I've played a bunch of games with
• 27:41
  Spectacular music that do that so I'm not you know I'm not knocking it you
• 27:47
  know uh but that's just not how we tend to do things um right well one of my
• 27:52
  favorite things about your games is the ability to give a voice to characters
• 27:57
  that don't have one and a physical presence to characters that only have a
• 28:02
  voice uh like how do you how do you achieve that yeah well th those are both
• 28:07
  tricky things uh you know the physical presence the characters who don't have a
• 28:12
  voice I mean we struggle with that or with characters who only have a voice we
• 28:16
  struggle with that a little bit uh figuring out how to do that in transistor specifically
• 28:22
  because we wanted the character the character is present right who speaking
• 28:27
  he's a major part of ma part my favorite character in that game yeah he's so he's
• 28:31
  very he's definitely present and we wanted to have some sort of physical
• 28:34
  indication of his presence which is sort of why we made sure to that we were able
• 28:40
  to have some sort of uh something that corresponded to his speech so we we
• 28:45
  ended up implementing a sort of the sword flashes when he speaks right uh
• 28:49
  which was a really critical because before that it was just sort of unclear
• 28:53
  who was even talking and that he was supposed to be there so so yeah I mean
• 28:56
  definitely we we have to sort of problem solve for that because we don't have
• 29:00
  characters with mouths animating and we don't have you know we don't we don't do
• 29:04
  that so um that we have to be creative with uh trying to find other solutions
• 29:10
  to that that problem and and as far as trying to uh give a voice to characters
• 29:15
  who don't have one is that sort of was that the other part of that because red
• 29:18
  is such a strong character she never speaks yeah so so part of the trick for
• 29:23
  that was I mean she she doesn't speak but you get to hear a lot of her sort of
• 29:29
  internal stuff because she has you're listening to a lot of songs that she has
• 29:34
  composed and performed you know and so you get to hear you know you get you get
• 29:39
  an insight into her creative voice at at the very least and her actual voice uh
• 29:44
  from the singing yeah and then another thing that we we tried to do to pull you
• 29:49
  inside her head and give her more of a voice was you know the the the thing
• 29:54
  that happens in turn mode when the music sort of muffles it self and her humming
• 29:59
  kicks in uh we did that both to sort of give a a meditative uh state to the turn mode
• 30:06
  where it's sort of a a respit from the craziness of the the real-time combat
• 30:11
  and also to kind of pull you in into her uh internal monologue if you will or or
• 30:17
  what what's going through her mind um uh in those battles right do you I mean so
• 30:23
  both of these games uh rely heavily on a narrator is that something that moving
• 30:27
  forward you'll still do well so py is a little different um
• 30:32
  uh in terms of how we deliver the story there's actually a lot more reading Y in
• 30:35
  this game and it's a critical part of the narrative the the act of reading uh
• 30:40
  so and we do have a sort of announcer narrator type character in this game who
• 30:45
  is also played by Logan Cunningham again this time around great uh so but we're
• 30:51
  delivering the bulk of the story in a pretty different way this time than we
• 30:55
  had did for transist or or Bastion is because I was wondering how do you keep
• 30:59
  the narration from going stale is that is that a reason that you chose this way
• 31:03
  instead yeah I mean we we like to try new things and try to keep it fresh for
• 31:07
  ourselves and interesting and and uh you know even even from Bastion to
• 31:12
  transistor even though there was someone talking to you the entire time again
• 31:16
  it's a pretty different story delivery method because instead of an omniscient
• 31:19
  narrator was somebody who was present with you experiencing all this stuff for
• 31:22
  the first time with you so it was certainly a different storytelling
• 31:25
  challenge the second time around and this time you know we're trying to do
• 31:29
  something different still and and um some of our decisions for what we do
• 31:34
  subsequent to the last thing some of it's based on stuff we feel like we
• 31:39
  wanted to achieve and didn't or some you know I mean everything informs that
• 31:44
  decision and comments that we've received and and just our own sort of
• 31:47
  perception of of how it went and and things we want to try differently next
• 31:51
  time and and uh but mostly what defines a lot about our next project is just
• 31:56
  sort of what everybody on team is sort of preoccupied with and interested in at
• 32:00
  the time that we start working on it you know cuz it's not it's not a decision
• 32:05
  that we make lightly all that stuff because it's a thing you're going to
• 32:08
  have to be working on for 3 years so you better like what you're doing yeah right
• 32:12
  um and so we all spend a lot of time in pre-production and making sure that
• 32:16
  we're on a path that is interesting to us yep uh for for the next project okay
• 32:22
  now is there any chance that we recently saw Bastion come out on the Xbox is
• 32:26
  there any chance that we will see trans or py uh there is a chance I don't know
• 32:32
  uh you know we're not an initial release uh not not at launch uh we're you know
• 32:37
  again a really small team and and so we don't have a lot of extra hands to do
• 32:42
  porting and stuff like that so um we and even if we do a higher out some of the
• 32:48
  porting stuff it still takes you know attention from from people on team so um
• 32:55
  you know when stuff CES down after this game I would say would be the the first
• 33:00
  possible opportunity for anything like that to happen but but but you know I
• 33:03
  would love to play transistor on the Xbox these are like two of the only
• 33:06
  games that I've switched to PC for no I feel you yeah I mean uh you know we
• 33:11
  haven't announced anything and don't have plans right now for anything but
• 33:14
  but nothing is out of the question basically we're everything we're open to
• 33:16
  everything great well I look forward to py thank you so much for speaking with
• 33:20
  us awesome yeah my my pleasure yeah I'm glad you got a chance to play yeah thank you you
• 33:26
  excellent we got to speak to a a few Australian developers it was really
• 33:29
  awesome to have a whole section devoted to all the Aussie games that we've
• 33:32
  actually seen and played before a bunch of people we knew some of the people
• 33:36
  we've even spoke to was unexpected there was SMG Studios they were the
• 33:39
  masterminds behind one more line yeah uh have you heard of that one James no I
• 33:43
  haven't heard of that one well you should wait until the end of this
• 33:46
  episode and then you should download that it's very addictive it's a you mean
• 33:50
  don't start playing right now so I stop listening to everything yeah okay it's a
• 33:54
  very simple very addictive mobile game and like I I honestly because I used to
• 34:00
  catch the train to work in Sydney I used to play my 3DS when I got this game and
• 34:03
  it's ridiculous because it's so simple but all I did was like on the way to
• 34:07
  work on the way home from work I was trying to beat 100 cuz they had like a a
• 34:12
  special CL you get over 100 points you were kind of in the cool Club yeah I got
• 34:18
  there eventually well they've just recently come out with death squared
• 34:22
  which is available now on the PlayStation 4 Xbox One and on PC it's a
• 34:26
  really cool multiplayer puzzle game yeah with lasers yeah like a party
• 34:31
  game it's like a party puzzle game yeah it's great all right that's kind of cool
• 34:35
  you have to work together to move your little colored boxes onto color
• 34:39
  coordinated uh squares without falling off the edge or running into a laser or
• 34:43
  something like that so different hazards affect different colors so you're like
• 34:48
  you might be able to walk through a blue force field because you're blue but
• 34:51
  somebody like the red character can't go through so you have to work together to
• 34:56
  navigate these kind of Mazes and things that sounds actually really fun yeah it
• 35:00
  will boost your communication skills I'm sure as you're yelling at each other you
• 35:05
  and your friends highly recommended we also talked to the company house house
• 35:09
  who are behind push me pull you yes what a terrific game I think we've spoken
• 35:15
  about it before on the podcast because we love it so much I think we've talked
• 35:18
  about it too much maybe probably it's just such a such a
• 35:25
  visceral experience Trent who we spoke to can best explain uh the game itself
• 35:32
  but it's it's kind of a party game as well so it's a four player game and two
• 35:36
  people share One controller and each use one of the joysticks like one of one
• 35:41
  thumb stick yeah watching people who have not played video games before try
• 35:44
  to play this is is amazing it's it's a good it's good fun as a game anyway but
• 35:50
  it's especially good for a laugh when you give it to people who don't know how
• 35:53
  to play video games but that's uh that's available now on Windows Mac Linux and
• 35:59
  Playstation 4 uh and we have a short interview uh with Trent I'm joined by
• 36:04
  Trent and we're going to talk about push me pull you which as you will know is
• 36:08
  one of our favorite games any games uh from Australia uh can you sum up the
• 36:14
  amazing nature of this game for us please well yeah I guess I mean it's
• 36:21
  it's kind of like a wrestling game with your friends right I mean I I can't do
• 36:24
  the pitch as much justice as the actual house House crew
• 37:27
  it's it's it's out on PS4 and steam PS4 and steam is any plans to bring it to
• 37:32
  like Xbox or any other platforms that's it I'm pretty sure we're we're out we're
• 37:36
  done the house House crew are now moving on to other cool things oh cool all
• 37:40
  right all right awesome thanks so much yes welcome uh we talked to the guys from
• 37:46
  Sleepless Clinic which is uh a kind of independent developer they had a bunch
• 37:50
  of games there and one that I really enjoyed is a game called symmetry it's a
• 37:57
  uh a kind of Resource Management game in
• 37:59
  a way uh SL Adventure SLS Survival game
• 38:04
  it's uh they described it as similar to this war of mine uh if any of if you
• 38:09
  guys have played that it's basically your you're part you control a crew of
• 38:16
  Space Explorers who have crash landed on this planet uh something on the planet
• 38:20
  is trying to kill them and basically they have to survive long enough to
• 38:26
  experience enough of the story that because from what he told me they will
• 38:32
  die eventually like they will all die but you want to find out enough about it
• 38:37
  that you can replay it with with different characters because you have a
• 38:40
  set of characters to choose from you replay it a bunch of times and
• 38:44
  eventually you figure out what's going on it kind of reminds me of a visual
• 38:47
  version of Lifeline yeah exactly like I don't know that you you can actually
• 38:52
  finish the game technically like the finishing the game means you you you
• 38:57
  know what the story is now because you've played through it with the
• 39:00
  different characters you've experienced all their little pieces of the puzzle to
• 39:04
  figure out what's going on um it was
• 39:07
  really cool and you know you you kind of you've assigned them to do certain tasks
• 39:13
  throughout the day and then at night time it gets cold so they have to do
• 39:15
  different things like someone has to grow plants in the base someone has to
• 39:18
  go collect junk outside but throughout it all they have conversations with each
• 39:22
  other and interact and you can even he made me wait till the end of the demo to
• 39:27
  do this but and and but there are very good reasons why you would do it
• 39:31
  apparently as part of the story you can just kill them like you can say okay
• 39:37
  this character dies now and then because what happens is part of the story it's
• 39:43
  it's it's really neat it's called symmetry um it's it's they don't have a
• 39:47
  release date for it yet but uh check out their website Sleepless
• 39:51
  clinic.com and have a look it it's really cool I'm definitely going to
• 39:55
  check it out when it's out one other game that want to talk about as pit
• 39:58
  people by the Behemoth they were nice enough to invite us over to their press
• 40:02
  breakfast on Friday morning they're a great company I loved their other games
• 40:06
  Castle Crashers and battle block theater they have a great mix of humor and a fun
• 40:10
  gameplay element I laugh out loud playing them many times oh yeah yeah
• 40:15
  when I made you play battle block theater you're laughing your head off I
• 40:18
  know we got to play a little bit of their new game pit people unfortunately
• 40:22
  our headsets weren't working so I think we lost a little bit of the game with
• 40:26
  that uh cuz as I I said they're they're very heavily based in humor sure yeah so
• 40:31
  it ended up kind of just being a turn-based game but I I didn't really
• 40:35
  know what I was supposed to be doing or why I would like to play it again under
• 40:39
  a different setting because I do really love their games yeah I know what you
• 40:42
  mean like I I understood how the game worked but I didn't know why I was doing
• 40:47
  things which I think detracted a lot for like I was able to progress but I just
• 40:52
  didn't understand why things were happening so yeah I was a disappointed
• 40:56
  on that in that sense too but that's no fault of the developers that's just I
• 41:01
  mean it was first thing on Friday morning before pack even opened noce
• 41:06
  first first thing Friday morning at PX technical issues
• 41:11
  yeah one other thing I want to mention was uh James do you like motohead I do
• 41:16
  like motohead do you like Dia Diablo I am obsessed with Diablo 3 well
• 41:23
  have I got a game for you a game called Victor ran and it's
• 41:29
  like a action RPG kind of Diablo Style game it's an isometric yeah isometric
• 41:35
  and I mean and it's a good game on its own however it also has a new expansion
• 41:40
  which is uh a motohead expansion basically and it's got motohead music
• 41:46
  and you play as lemie and it was all done in conjunction with with them I
• 41:50
  think they they started it before Lamy passed away I believe he said so like
• 41:55
  it's all licensed official and you you it's the story of of motohead in a video
• 42:02
  game that plays like Diablo II that's kind of amazing yeah so uh definitely
• 42:09
  check that out that's uh the the game itself Victor vanan is available now I
• 42:13
  think it has been for quite a while uh and the motohead expansion is out now on
• 42:17
  PC and I think he said it's coming to consoles in fall this year James did you
• 42:22
  get to try out the switch at all or have you used one yet I haven't used one yet
• 42:27
  um I've been really interested in that I've got a a friend who works at
• 42:29
  GameStop who was sending me photos the night it was released of her playing the
• 42:34
  Nintendo switch and how amazing it was um and then an hour later was posting
• 42:38
  how she couldn't connect to the internet with it so you know I've kind of got
• 42:42
  that that mixed review but uh if I remember correctly you guys actually got
• 42:46
  into the Nintendo Cafe right so what were your thoughts after
• 42:50
  get actually getting that thing in your hands Nintendo had a booth set up where
• 42:54
  part of it was a cafe part of was an airplane part of it was a van it was
• 42:58
  just to demonstrate all the different areas that you could play the switch but
• 43:03
  I I'm pretty undecided about it yeah it's in handheld mode it's pretty cool
• 43:09
  it's like a very powerful console I'll give you this but yeah it's if if I had
• 43:14
  a commute where I was on a bus or a train it'd be worth it would it though
• 43:19
  cuz if you have a 3DS is it worth it to buy a switch I don't know I I think the
• 43:23
  idea of being able to take that game I was playing on the commute and just plug
• 43:26
  it right into my TV when I get home and continue ignoring my wife and playing a
• 43:30
  video game that's worth something you know like that's kind of
• 43:35
  cool I agree I agree that the idea of that is very appealing except I worry
• 43:40
  that like cuz I I drive like to work every day and and then I'm at work and
• 43:46
  then I come home so I there's no kind of place in between where I would stop and
• 43:51
  play it in portable mode and then when I get home I've got an Xbox so I just
• 43:55
  don't know that I would use it you know I like my 3DS I love my 3DS it's it's
• 44:01
  down there in a case that I don't take it out of you know and I love it but I
• 44:06
  it's just it's packed away so I'm I'm I I think the switch would end up the same
• 44:12
  where it's like oh man there's my switch that thing's great anyway going play an
• 44:15
  Xbox game I don't think the buttons were very comfortable in portable mode
• 44:20
  they're too close together I don't think I would enjoy playing a game unless I
• 44:23
  was using the Pro Controller and in that case I may as well just use the console
• 44:28
  yeah also I want to kill Nintendo for switching the functionality of the
• 44:33
  buttons yeah wait what do you mean switching the functionality so say you
• 44:37
  wanted to jump off something what button would you press yeah instinctively based
• 44:42
  on every other video game yeah you press a where would you find a where would you
• 44:46
  find a on the controller a is the bottom of the pyramid m is
• 44:52
  it your it's it's your thumb button now if you wanted to cancel out of something
• 44:57
  what would you press you press B yeah right and where is that that's right
• 45:01
  next to well I mean logically that's right next to a but yeah still a thumb
• 45:04
  button right next to a yeah it's on the right correct yeah yeah that's all on
• 45:09
  the right side yeah now switch those around it's on the left I'm saying the
• 45:13
  the buttons of f no just switch those two buttons around but why why would you
• 45:19
  why would you do that I don't know because Nintendo because they wanted to
• 45:22
  make it impossible for anyone who's ever played a video game to remember which
• 45:26
  but does what so like looking at an Xbox right where the green button is and the
• 45:31
  red button is just swap them yeah for no for no no very good reason other than just to be
• 45:38
  different just to quickly press a and I'm like which one's a yeah why is
• 45:43
  a not where a should be on a controller and cuz it's it's I mean with
• 45:47
  the PlayStation right it doesn't they're different right the but the placement is
• 45:51
  still the same like it's x on a PlayStation controller but it's still
• 45:55
  the bottom button yeah it's still the same button so now they've they just
• 46:00
  totally switch that up on you ah it's the Nintendo switch
• 46:05
  no no not liking that yeah so we played a little bit of
• 46:10
  breath of the wild and there were times that I would just kind of take a plunge
• 46:14
  off the side of a building to my death because I was trying to climb down
• 46:18
  something or I would open a menu and just keep closing it while trying to
• 46:21
  equip something just S I mean maybe there's a way to remap it in the
• 46:24
  controls I didn't look cuz we didn't have time for me to around with
• 46:27
  that cuz we only had a time demo of it but just so weird like and frustrating
• 46:33
  for I mean surely they know they they've played other consoles they know yeah
• 46:38
  right someone someone we're not the first there's got to be a way to remap
• 46:42
  that yeah we're not the first people to to bring that up I'm sure it's like
• 46:45
  inverted look you know old school Gamers use inverted look newer kids don't use
• 46:50
  inverted look and so you've got to have the way to switch it over yep I had to
• 46:53
  switch mine over to inverted look yeah too me too so I can confirm that
• 46:59
  Nintendo does let you do inverted look yeah breath of the wild seems nice
• 47:04
  uh but I can get it on the Wii U so I probably will just do that for now will
• 47:10
  yeah and then I'll wait and see was actually developed for the Wii U right
• 47:15
  so breath of the wild was developed for the Wii U and then when they had the
• 47:18
  switch they started to P it over and from everything I've heard the graphics
• 47:21
  and the gameplay is actually better on Wii U than getting it on the switch Yeah
• 47:25
  I it's well it's weird in that too cuz I heard that there's there's some slowdown
• 47:29
  on the Wii U but there's also some slowdown on the switch and it's in
• 47:33
  different areas so I guess they're just better at different things the two
• 47:37
  consoles which is I don't know it's kind of weird but the graphics aren't better
• 47:42
  on the switch it maybe runs a few frames better most of the time I think is the
• 47:48
  consensus so and the game is exactly the same they took the touchcreen
• 47:52
  functionality out of the game because they knew that the switch wouldn't have
• 47:55
  a touchcreen they do some some weird things Nintendo yeah you know the whole
• 47:59
  Nintendo online thing I don't know if you guys have talked about this on the
• 48:03
  podcast but it's like a subscription service where you get a game for a month
• 48:07
  and then they take it away yeah that's right I'm sorry what yeah so you know
• 48:12
  how Xbox or Playstation Works uh if you have a gold account or whatever it is on
• 48:16
  Playstation you get a game a month or a couple of games a month for free and you
• 48:20
  get to keep them I think with Xbox it's for as long as you have a subscription
• 48:24
  or the 360 games are just free forever but the Nintendo you lose it after a
• 48:30
  month and if you haven't finished it then you have to buy it so they don't
• 48:34
  give you a free game they give you a demo for a month yeah yeah or like a
• 48:38
  like a monthong rental Microsoft is talking about doing that too uh as like
• 48:42
  an extra thing so but and in both cases I think that's really strange but that's
• 48:48
  in addition to the free games oh correct yeah so Microsoft's going to do a thing
• 48:53
  where you can subscribe and then you get like uh a bunch of games and they don't
• 48:57
  rotate every month so but it's still a little bit bit random from what I
• 49:02
  understand so like if they put it's mostly going to be a problem I
• 49:07
  think with with longer games like say they put Red Dead Redemption on there
• 49:10
  right and that's the kind of game that I don't have time to finish in a month
• 49:13
  right but if it's on there for six months that's fine and then they rotate
• 49:16
  it out maybe I'll get to it I'll have I'll have time but still such a weird
• 49:21
  concept like I wouldn't think that they would put games like that on there
• 49:24
  though it's just weird yeah well that would be weird except to entice you to buy
• 49:31
  them right I'm kind of I kind of like that though so you know personally
• 49:35
  situation I'm in I I don't have money for video games it just doesn't happen
• 49:38
  anymore but if I can play a small fee and get a couple of exra games every
• 49:42
  month have them switch out I'd probably be totally down for that you know this
• 49:46
  uh I just downloaded evolve which is a game I always wanted but never wanted to
• 49:50
  pay for and I'm super psyched with Microsoft and the free games they've
• 49:53
  been doing it's not always a stellar game but once every 3 months you're
• 49:57
  going to get something that you love out of it so it's totally worth it they give
• 50:00
  out some pretty good games on there yeah they really do they do a lot that I'm
• 50:05
  like damn I just bought that game months ago yeah I bought the new Tomb Raider
• 50:10
  and then it was just free and I was like God damn it or a Murdered Soul Suspect
• 50:14
  oh yeah yeah I likeed that game I love that game I tried to play that game
• 50:20
  couldn't do it a um the other thing we tested out on the Wii U the Wii U sorry
• 50:24
  on the Nintendo switch was Mario Kart and it's kind of the same game except it
• 50:28
  has this weird little feature that that
• 50:32
  the game for you yeah and I except Luke right Luke I said this to Luke and he
• 50:38
  goes oh thank God finally what and I was like I was like what and you know what
• 50:44
  he said he goes to that gaming bar in camber all the time and he plays Mario
• 50:49
  Kart there all the time and he said all always somebody gets up and leaves in
• 50:54
  the middle of a race right and then the race can't end cuz they just sat there
• 51:00
  and he was like like his his use case it's the only example I can think of but
• 51:06
  but I was like oh all right fine then do you remember when we tried to get our
• 51:11
  niece to play it it was like 45 minutes of her just slamming into walls and US
• 51:15
  ripping our hair out yeah so there you go Luke's I think
• 51:20
  figured out what that's for so basically it it it like you
• 51:26
  probably won't you won't win the race unless everybody just puts the
• 51:30
  controllers down but you don't just stop if you don't hold down the accelerator
• 51:35
  he'll your character will just well there is no accelerator right you just uh use the
• 51:41
  drifting to pick up speed and stuff like that but you uh you will just complete
• 51:47
  the circuit in at a safe speed if you just sit the controller on the desk or
• 51:53
  whatever which yeah I thought it was weird luk said that and I went oh all
• 51:57
  right I guess that makes sense but are we really gearing games towards playing in
• 52:03
  bars I don't know what Nintendo's up to wouldn't surprise
• 52:09
  me we tried some VR you want to talk about that oh yeah James have you played
• 52:13
  any VR yeah buddy mine has got uh both the Vive and the Oculus um so I've
• 52:19
  played quite a bit of VR uh absolutely love it um I think there's only one time
• 52:24
  when I've really gotten motion sickness out of it and that was yeah that was an
• 52:28
  interesting time but yeah I mean so far the games I've played have been
• 52:32
  fantastic what game was that um I wish I could remember the name of it uh
• 52:36
  piloting a spaceship um so you were a starf fighter um and it it was like the game
• 52:41
  was absolutely killer or like Elite dangerous or something maybe I'll uh
• 52:46
  I'll see if I can pull that up real quick and confirm that for you um but
• 52:49
  yeah like after like 5 minutes of that game I was ready to toss my
• 52:53
  lunch that is something that I was worried about playing VR cuz I do get
• 52:57
  motion sickness uh mostly with uh fpss I haven't really found that VR does that
• 53:02
  to me though I think because I have peripheral vision and because I know
• 53:06
  where I'm about to look it just doesn't affect me as much as I thought it would
• 53:10
  right but watching other people play yeah I only get motion sickness
• 53:15
  when there's extreme movement happening all around me but the body's not doing
• 53:19
  it you know it's not right um if it's a first person shooter it's not an issue
• 53:23
  if it's a puzzle game it's not an issue you know it's only when the I'm in is
• 53:27
  doing barrel rolls and loops and my body is not that's where it gets to me yeah
• 53:33
  yeah we played a couple of excellent VR
• 53:36
  games one of my favorites was Dick wild
• 53:40
  cuz it's called Dick wild P starters and uh and also it was great it's a a
• 53:47
  shooter basically I'm joined by Yim the uh the
• 53:51
  Mind behind dick wild which is uh VR shooting experience uh what can you tell
• 53:57
  us about the game so right now it's it's an arcade shooter uh about this this guy
• 54:02
  called dig wild who is the guy who takes care of of your Lake if if it's invaded by by sea
• 54:09
  monsters um so yeah you call this guy and then he shows up and then he takes
• 54:13
  care of it yeah um so what you do is you're standing on this raft and a lot
• 54:18
  of a lot of sea monsters like alligators and all all other stuff is like coming
• 54:22
  against you and then what you have to do is you have to use whatever in his of
• 54:26
  weapons to to destroy them before they destroy you yeah yeah that's that's
• 54:31
  basically it so you got there's a a number of weapons you can choose from uh
• 54:36
  like was the revolvers are kind of standard is that right yeah so we have
• 54:40
  uh the revolvers which is like it's the easiest one to get it's the easiest one
• 54:43
  to understand it's uh it's it's like Aim Shoot to Kill uh and then we have uh the
• 54:49
  grenade launcher which just like you launch out a grenade and you can explode
• 54:52
  it midair with the other hand and you can change it into you change mode on a
• 54:56
  lot of the weapons for this one you can change it into a uh missile launcher oh
• 55:01
  cool which you can also explode in the air uh what do you have more we have uh
• 55:07
  we have the bow I use the bow the bow is fun yeah so the bow you can you can take
• 55:11
  it back and then you can uh it's like a it's like a chain lightning gun at the
• 55:15
  same time um what do we have more we have uh we have the nail guns yeah which
• 55:20
  is uh you have two different modes we have like the like the sniping mode
• 55:24
  where it goes into single fire they shot slower and then the other one is like
• 55:29
  full automatic where it has a lot of recoil so you have to like kind of aim
• 55:33
  against that okay uh then you have the paintball guns which is like burst fire
• 55:37
  mode right and if you shoot too fast with them like the g g meter like the
• 55:41
  air meter goes down and then it starts shooting less less yeah exactly so have
• 55:47
  a lot of different kind of weapons seven seven different weapons so far it's it
• 55:52
  feels really good to to play like did you how did you spend a lot of time like
• 55:57
  kind of achieving that like how difficult is it's very responsive and it
• 56:01
  feels very natural thank you like we we used a lot of time doing that like uh we
• 56:07
  used 3 months of of getting up the the prototype for the game and in the start
• 56:11
  we had a lot of stuff that he were throwing around it right and it was fun
• 56:16
  but it wasn't really that good so we we kind of like okay we needed to get some
• 56:20
  some weapons to shoot and we tried out like a ton of different I don't know how
• 56:25
  many like hundreds of different things and then reiterate every day we have
• 56:30
  been working on this game so far for like three months after the the period
• 56:34
  of that 3 months so it's 6 month in total yeah but the first three months
• 56:37
  was uh me and and two other uh two interns right just getting the the
• 56:43
  Prototype up and then 3 months after that of of getting uh yeah until here
• 56:49
  awesome uh which is pretty fast but it's we were really really like a lot of
• 56:53
  testing and our game designer has been really really good at at getting the
• 56:56
  weapons up there so it's nice so is the game available now it's available at
• 57:01
  March 30 okay it will be available for Ulus and Vive on Steam store any plans I
• 57:08
  see PlayStation VR any plans for like I this wouldn't run on like an Xbox One or
• 57:13
  anything right you need like a Scorpio or whatever the next thing is yeah
• 57:16
  probably yeah yeah and then we need to like make the version of it and all that
• 57:19
  stuff as well um which is also the ver the reason why PlayStation VR is is
• 57:24
  going to be later on right okay uh I don't know when but okay but this year
• 57:29
  okay so PC with oculus and and Vive yes cool indeed all right thanks so much and
• 57:35
  and I really love this game and I'm going to buy it nice cool cool
• 57:40
  thanks I played rock band in VR at the alien wear Booth oh yeah and at first I
• 57:45
  was like oh man this is not going to be rock band I don't know what this is
• 57:48
  going to be and when I put the headset on I'm not going to be able to see my
• 57:51
  guitar or where the buttons are and I don't know why it surprised me to look
• 57:55
  down and see that the guitar was there and when I press the buttons they light
• 57:59
  up it was really cool it just puts a virtual guitar there that you can look
• 58:04
  at yeah and you're on stage and you can turn around and see the drummer and the
• 58:08
  rest of the band next to you and the singer and you look out and the audience
• 58:12
  is all screaming for you it is so cool yeah it looks pretty good and I
• 58:17
  think they've tried to make it a little more realistic as well it's it
• 58:21
  functionally a bit different right I only played a little demo but I think it
• 58:24
  gives you a little bit more freedom so it doesn't matter how you strum as long
• 58:28
  as you stay in time right and the chords are a little bit different to play okay
• 58:33
  it was pretty cool and it's coming out very soon um just this week it's coming
• 58:38
  out on the Oculus and it's only $70 which is not bad I think it comes with
• 58:42
  the guitar right so you just have to have an Oculus I just can't believe
• 58:46
  they're still making rock band games I know right I felt bad cuz the guy was
• 58:51
  like oh do you do you like these games and I was like ah no actually I don't
• 58:55
  and he was like oh that's okay I work for alien wear not not harmonics
• 59:00
  so how good so that's not insulting at all don't worry no did you guys check
• 59:06
  out uh Samurai Punk at all while you were there of course yeah we actually
• 59:10
  know them from Australia so I I walked past it but I didn't get a chance to
• 59:14
  really do anything with it can what is that game all about yeah Samurai Punk
• 59:19
  well Nick we know from Australia they've been at a bunch of conventions in Sydney
• 59:22
  showing off the game screen sheet uh they once challenge sorry Luke
• 59:27
  challenged Nick once to a game of screen sheet and uh it got a bit got a bit
• 59:32
  tense in there cuz uh it seemed like Luke was going to beat him this time
• 59:36
  they were showing their new VR experience it was called the American
• 59:39
  dream uh it's about guns and we interviewed Nick about it h it's
• 59:45
  probably best if he explains it himself I'm here with Nicholas from Samurai Punk
• 59:49
  and I've just had the extreme pleasure of experiencing the American dream
• 59:52
  thanks man I'm glad you enjoyed it I really enjoyed it it's hilarious
• 59:57
  uh it's basically about how to how to enjoy your guns as an American now as an
• 1:00:03
  Australian uh what inspired you to to experience or to help others experience
• 1:00:08
  the American drink so it's actually came out of a lot of introspection playing
• 1:00:12
  and making FPS games uh through our production on screen sheet and then
• 1:00:18
  moving into our next project we were like thinking a lot about FPS games that
• 1:00:21
  we could make not that we want to make an FPS game just that like we would come
• 1:00:25
  up with designs and we like why why are we discussing an FPS game with such
• 1:00:28
  manua and like the fetishism around the mechanics was very surreal to us as we
• 1:00:33
  sort of became self-aware so we're like wouldn't it be interesting to make a
• 1:00:37
  game about what the Call of Duty die does when he goes home at night right
• 1:00:41
  you know yeah so he has he interacts with the world through
• 1:00:45
  guns uh and never talks so what what do they do how do they express themselves
• 1:00:51
  in the world right cuz your hands are just literally guns yeah you don't even
• 1:00:55
  have hands in our game you you like unlike most VR Shooters you don't have
• 1:00:58
  like a ghost representation of the hand holding the gun you just have the gun
• 1:01:03
  yeah you do have a nose which was a nice touch well that's actually an
• 1:01:06
  experimental test to improve motion sickness right yeah yeah as soon as I
• 1:01:11
  put it on I I actually I was like oh that's weet I'm not used to that like
• 1:01:14
  when I when I do these things it's no it's nice it's a nice touch um the
• 1:01:19
  controls feel really good it's very responsive um the uh it's the final game
• 1:01:25
  we can we have more cuz it's kind of a series of mini games sort of uh yeah so
• 1:01:29
  every level kind of has the spoke mechanics uh but most we start to try to
• 1:01:34
  reuse mechanics uh or introduce like specific Mechanics for specific guns
• 1:01:39
  like the rifle the assault rifle or shotgun or pistols uh so they let us
• 1:01:43
  explore different territories most of them are basically like constructing
• 1:01:47
  jokes around these guns or um telling a
• 1:01:51
  narrative element so this the demo we're showing is very high level and doesn't
• 1:01:56
  any of the narrative oh okay cool so it's just setting the tone and space and
• 1:02:00
  the ideal is that over the 2 and 1 half hours of game play you sort of get a
• 1:02:04
  feel for what we're trying to do with the game okay yeah awesome so there will
• 1:02:08
  be more guns more more things to shoot more experiences yes yeah
• 1:02:14
  um what uh just coming out later this year yeah we're aiming for Q3 cool and
• 1:02:20
  what platforms will that be on uh Playstation VR Oculus and VI awesome all
• 1:02:24
  right thank you very much for your time and letting us play the game yeah thanks for
• 1:02:28
  playing that's Nick from Samurai Punk he's a cool dude say hi to him at a
• 1:02:33
  convention tell them multiple nasm sent you and we tried one other VR experience
• 1:02:39
  uh which was It's actually an experience it's not necessarily really a game uh it
• 1:02:44
  was made by a company called cypop and it was called Kismet cypop isn't even a
• 1:02:49
  game company actually they are a commercial company and they've won a lot
• 1:02:54
  of awards for companies like Coke
• 1:03:56
  of the solar system that kind of rotates and you can like again you can lean in
• 1:04:01
  and check out all the detail on that like this thing beautiful yeah it is my
• 1:04:06
  only problem with VR is that it kind of takes away all of your senses and you
• 1:04:10
  forget where you are yeah it's a good thing but also a weird yeah but why is
• 1:04:13
  that a problem it's just a little weird to be at a convention when that happens
• 1:04:18
  yeah I feel very self-conscious uh a couple times playing these
• 1:04:23
  games I'll have to get you guys to my Budd house so that we can set up a
• 1:04:27
  couple of them um because he's got multiple VR sets we're actually able to
• 1:04:31
  play a lot of the games together um like Arizona desert it's a zombie first
• 1:04:35
  person shooter so you can be in two rooms right next to each other on VR
• 1:04:39
  shooting zombies in the heads um and it's really cool but you know for us
• 1:04:43
  it's um the danger with VR is not that your senses are blocked off but it's
• 1:04:48
  setting up the area so that when your senses are blocked off you don't things
• 1:04:51
  like do things like walk downstairs or trip over chairs rightt right
• 1:04:56
  you need like a guide and it ex I mean in the VR headsets it exists you know
• 1:04:59
  you've got when you get to the edge of the mapped out area it shows you what's
• 1:05:03
  going on so it's not a danger you know for people who haven't tried it it's not
• 1:05:08
  like you're going to walk into this thing and you're just you're walking
• 1:05:11
  around blind totally blacked out you know it actually Maps out where you are
• 1:05:15
  sets up a perimeter and when you get close to the perimeter it shows up on
• 1:05:18
  the screen so you know what's going on that's cool well we checked out a bunch
• 1:05:22
  of panels as well while we were there um we didn't actually get to to go to all
• 1:05:26
  the panels we wanted to I know but we did get to watch the ones that we missed
• 1:05:30
  on Twitch yeah you guys made it to the gearbox panel right yeah we did that is
• 1:05:34
  a great panel so what's going on with them cuz I'm I'm obsessed with gearbox
• 1:05:40
  listeners if you're at packs or any other convention and gearbox is having a
• 1:05:43
  panel go to it even if you don't like gearbox just go it's the best panel just
• 1:05:49
  do it every panel I've been to they've given out something that is like some
• 1:05:54
  ridiculous thing that you wouldn't expect to be given just for turning up
• 1:05:58
  to a panel like we've gotten um the full first season of tales of the Borderlands
• 1:06:02
  in the past we've gotten the C the psycho expansion for Borderlands 2 in
• 1:06:07
  the past this time they were handing out the deluxe edition of battleborn and a
• 1:06:14
  key for the new Bullet Storm remake I mean if that's not enough incentive to
• 1:06:19
  get along to a gearbox panel next time I don't know what is but not only that um
• 1:06:23
  Randy gave a he actually gave it at GDC just earlier and he decided to to do it
• 1:06:28
  again at PX cuz he thought people would be interested he basically presented
• 1:06:32
  Borderlands 3 but since they haven't announced it yet he wasn't allow he
• 1:06:36
  couldn't say that it was Borderlands 3 so he did say you know what game this is
• 1:06:42
  I'm not going to say it but you know what this is uh so that's I think that's that's
• 1:06:46
  what they're working on or one of the things they're working on so how do you
• 1:06:49
  present a game without presenting the game well he was actually presenting the
• 1:06:55
  technology like that was that was the kind of the basis of the talk was the
• 1:06:59
  advances that they've made on top of Unreal Engine 4 to allow them to do you
• 1:07:02
  know the kind of cell shaded look of Borderlands in a much more advanced and
• 1:07:07
  sophisticated way so he showed us a bunch of test stuff and was like yeah
• 1:07:11
  yeah yeah you know what it is let's just pretend that you don't know what that is
• 1:07:14
  and it's just a demo of the tech but it was Borderlands it's Borderlands 3 and
• 1:07:20
  uh yeah so he was displaying the tech but in doing so he also showed is what
• 1:07:26
  the game's going to look like and it looks awesome it's just going to it's
• 1:07:31
  beautiful he said it's no secret that they're working on it he's just not
• 1:07:33
  ready to officially announce the game yet yeah which is weird but you know I
• 1:07:38
  really hope bunkers and badasses makes a return that was the hands down the best
• 1:07:42
  expansion for any game I've ever played Yeah we actually just bought it in the
• 1:07:46
  Xbox sale so that we can get to that expansion yeah I bought the expansion
• 1:07:49
  yeah I mean ages ago but I never actually got around to playing it so as
• 1:07:54
  D and D players I can't believe you guys haven't played that one before yeah I
• 1:07:58
  know ridiculous uh speaking of D and D we went to the Acquisitions Incorporated
• 1:08:03
  live D and panel at PS the players are Mike and Jerry from Penny Arcade they're
• 1:08:08
  the guys who write the comic and started the whole convention there is Morgan web
• 1:08:12
  who's kind of an online gamer yeah she's like a presenter she's a former host
• 1:08:15
  from G4 and lastly Chris stra Who Matt you're familiar with Chris dra is a is a
• 1:08:21
  comic artist he wor he did a chainsaw suit and he's done uh he's he's a been a
• 1:08:26
  guest artist on Penny Arcade a bunch of times uh he's kind of a comedian slash
• 1:08:32
  comic artist he's a very funny cool guy the game is DMD by Chris Perkins who
• 1:08:37
  actually works for Wizards of the Coast he's an amazing DM he's so good at
• 1:08:41
  keeping them focused without railroading them yeah it's a group of comedians so
• 1:08:46
  they get off topic pretty easily yeah he keeps them focused because they had like
• 1:08:50
  a two and a half hour slot right to kind of get from the beginning to the end of
• 1:08:55
  this chunk of game and he's very good at making sure that they get there you know
• 1:09:01
  what I mean yeah but doing it in a way where the players don't feel as they're
• 1:09:05
  being pushed through they're getting to do what they want to do yeah it doesn't
• 1:09:08
  seem like he's yeah no he's not saying hurry up hurry up hurry up but he is but
• 1:09:12
  he's doing it in a clever dungeon Mastery way yeah it's it's uh dming is
• 1:09:17
  probably one of the hardest things you can do you know you offhandedly mention
• 1:09:20
  that maybe there's a spelling be and suddenly your players want to spend 3
• 1:09:23
  hours at the spelling be yeah you got be careful crazy things can happen jok like
• 1:09:27
  that listeners if you're wondering what that's about multiple nasm has a Star
• 1:09:31
  Wars RPG available on Twitch yeah if you're interested in hearing that
• 1:09:36
  disaster oh come on yeah the acquisition Inc panels great
• 1:09:42
  if you're I think even if you don't you're not that familiar with Dungeons
• 1:09:46
  and Dragons It's it's good for a laugh anyway because those guys are just so
• 1:09:49
  funny and and the story is interesting
• 1:09:53
  like Perkin is a great DM it's
• 1:10:08
  [Laughter]
• 1:10:55
  end but overall I was really disappointed in the panel they didn't
• 1:10:58
  really do anything they just I mean they showed the game they played the game and
• 1:11:01
  people and you could watch them play the game but I mean you can do that in a
• 1:11:05
  couple days anyway the CD project red gwent panel was excellent uh I know
• 1:11:11
  that's definitely up on Twitch because I that's where I I watched it because we
• 1:11:14
  couldn't get into it um and it was a really really good panel it's really
• 1:11:19
  interesting and very funny as well those guys have a really good sense of humor I
• 1:11:23
  would recommend you check that out check out the Gbox panel uh check out
• 1:11:27
  acquisition Inc and uh the omegathon final round uh the omegathon for those
• 1:11:34
  who don't know every packs uh when you buy a badge they ask you do you want to
• 1:11:38
  be considered for entry in the omegathon they pick uh a bunch of attendees at
• 1:11:42
  random and you compete in a ladder of various video game related challenges
• 1:11:47
  not necessarily even video games themselves and sometimes it's tabletop
• 1:11:51
  too actually just game channel challenges uh you compete and then at
• 1:11:56
  the on the final day the last thing is the omegathon final round where the um
• 1:12:01
  the last two teams this time actually they've been doing teams lately um well
• 1:12:06
  now that we know what the final game was they needed teams for that right exactly
• 1:12:10
  yeah the final this time was keep talking and nobody explodes which is if
• 1:12:15
  you're not familiar with it it's a great game such a good game
• 1:12:19
  amazing it was so tense to watch and everybody in the audience can see what's
• 1:12:24
  happening but they want help but they can't and they're like oh I'll just cut
• 1:12:28
  the yellow wire so the game basically one person is uh in this case it was
• 1:12:34
  done with virtual reality but I don't think it it doesn't have to be you could
• 1:12:36
  just be at a computer as well one person is playing the game I guess uh and the
• 1:12:42
  other person who can't see the screen and shouldn't be able to see the screen
• 1:12:46
  has a manual on how to disarm a bomb and so the person controlling the game has
• 1:12:52
  to describe the bomb to the other person who then has to tell the
• 1:12:55
  how to disarm it that's that's basically it and uh it gets increasingly more
• 1:13:00
  difficult and with more advanced elaborate bombs and uh I think it's on it's on
• 1:13:06
  mobile and and VR and and everything right this game yeah you just get it
• 1:13:11
  anywhere yeah it's a great game and it was a really good final round it was
• 1:13:14
  very tense uh and very funny so I would check that out on the uh twitch stream
• 1:13:20
  as well I do want to thank Asylum gaming and Esports for inviting us along to the
• 1:13:25
  after party on Friday night at laugh Boston they had an open bar which was
• 1:13:30
  awesome they had some beer pong tables set up and a bunch of consoles with
• 1:13:33
  emulators on them yeah so we got to play a bunch of old games we played some life
• 1:13:37
  force which my favorite game on the Nintendo and some Mario Golf and we met
• 1:13:41
  a few people it was a great time yeah it was a good night yeah big thanks to them
• 1:13:45
  we appreciate it that was fun and a huge thank you to Penny Arcade for sending us
• 1:13:50
  the media passes yeah we've been covering paa for a bit and uh and Luke
• 1:13:56
  will continue that uh and we're happy to be covering packs here and big thanks to
• 1:14:01
  them for letting us uh big thanks again to our sponsors as always
• 1:14:06
  tuu uh if you head to multipl nerdgasm tocom merch you can check out our
• 1:14:11
  t-shirts they do our merch for us uh and I say T-shirts they do T-shirts they do
• 1:14:15
  hoodies they do laptop sleeves they do notebooks they do all sorts of stuff uh
• 1:14:21
  and they do our stuff and if you go to our store we also curate a collection of
• 1:14:25
  other designs that they have as well they've got all sorts of nerdy designs
• 1:14:28
  they've got Witcher stuff they've got uh probably some Borderland stuff they've
• 1:14:32
  got they've got old arcade stuff yeah uh anything you can think of really type it
• 1:14:37
  into the search box uh and you'll probably find a cool shirt uh and
• 1:14:41
  they've also having a sale this week so uh if if you get in quickly when you
• 1:14:46
  hear this um I think t-shirts are going to be down to $14 from 20 and everything
• 1:14:51
  everything else is reduced as well definitely check that out multipl
• 1:14:53
  nerdgasm tocom merch if you go through that URL they'll know we sent you and
• 1:14:57
  they'll help support the show so we really appreciate it and if you want to
• 1:15:00
  get in touch with us you can find us on Facebook at multiple nerdgasm Twitter at
• 1:15:04
  M nerdgasm Instagram at multip nerdgasm or you can email us podcast multipl
• 1:15:10
  nerdgasm docomo
• 1:15:15
  401 thanks I appreciate that last plug thank you James for coming on the show
• 1:15:20
  and thank you guys for listening go and check out multiple nerdgasm
• 1:15:25
  weekly podcast that Matt does with our other hosts Luke and Dan or you can
• 1:15:29
  listen to our horror movie podcast necron nomon that Matt and I do that
• 1:15:32
  comes out once a month or check back here because we do lots of coverage of
• 1:15:36
  Live Events thank you for listening and thank you
• 1:15:48
  PS